2) Enviromedia, friend of the Nudge blog and the creator of greenwashingindex.com, a tool for ferreting out misleading green ads, has unveiled a new web site, greendetectives.net, to help people decode the language of climate change. The United Nation’s climate change conference is this month in Copenhagen.

3) Philadelphia now requires that lenders and homeowners meet in person prior to foreclosure. Will these meetings lessen foreclosure rates?

The European Union’s commitment to fighting global warming has meant a growing trend in European countries of incorporating energy audits and ratings as part of the home sales process. Relative to other options, boosting buildings efficiency standards is usually the most attractive economic and political option to policymakers because of the large piece of the energy pie that buildings take up. (In the EU, buildings account for 40 percent of energy consumption.) As part of the European Union’s Directive on The Energy Performance of Buildings, all member countries are expected to have energy performance certificates available as part of a required information packet when a new home is sold or leased.

Disclaimer

The Nudge blog is associated with the book Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. Sunstein is currently the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and has no affiliation with the Nudge blog.